Doesn't It Drive You Mad?
by teh liz
Summary: [rent 100] Mark and April make some friendly conversation.


**Prompt:** 014. Green  
**Author's Notes:** If you think I own Rent, you need more help than I do. I realized that I'm definitely not writing these in a very good chronological order, so I thought about adding a rough chronological guideline and updating that as I go, too. Whaddaya think?

April moved quickly out of the bar, taking her purse with her – she wasn't leaving yet, but Mark was kind of into filming at the second, and he didn't really seem the type who would think about watching a girl's purse. She just needed to get out of there for a second, away from the crowd and the legions of screaming fans that The Well Hungarians seemed to pick up with each new gig. Not that they didn't deserve it.

"April, you all right?" she heard, and turned to find the concerned blue eyes of Mark Cohen looking back at her.

"Yeah, I just needed a little bit of air," she said with what she hoped was a convincing smile. "Really."

"Oh, well," he said, cradling his camera carefully, and then he asked, "Mind if I join you?"

"No," she smiled at Mark, and he smiled back, if a bit nervously. She didn't know Roger's roommates as well as she knew Roger, but she was sure she was as big a mystery to them as they were to her. That was going to change, she promised herself. "So, how long have you known Roger?"

"A couple years, actually," he said, moving a bit closer to lean on the building next to her. "Benny and I met him at a party while we were still in school. He was visiting his mom, I think. He was half-drunk at the time."

"I trust he wasn't getting amorous with you like he gets with me," she joked.

"Ah, no," he answered, and then laughed a bit. "No, he was… well, loud."

"Louder than usual?"

"Pretty much," he said. "You met him at one of his gigs, right?"

"Yeah, back in March," she said, blushing a little at the memory. "Not one of my best nights."

"It was… kind of funny, because when he came back in that night, he couldn't talk about anything but you," Mark said, fiddling with his camera again.

April was glad it was dark, because she felt like she was turning very, very red. "Really?" was all she could think to say, although definitely didn't think that Mark was the type to say something like that and not mean it. Besides, there was no reason for him to lie, he wasn't going to be getting anything about it if he did.

"Yeah. We kept wondering when we were going to get to meet you, and he was all, 'no, I don't want her to meet you assholes yet,' and it generally degenerated from there," he said with a smile.

"That's, ah, sweet, I guess," she allowed, and laughed a little. It certainly sounded like Roger, if nothing else. "Well, I really like him, too."

"Good, you might be good for him," Mark said, and offered no further explanation. He suddenly lifted the camera to his face and the crank began turning, catching April's image on film.

"Hey, wait, what're you doing?" she asked, shrinking away a little. She knew Mark filmed anything and everything, but she didn't think it would extend to her, at least not soon and not right now. She wasn't even doing anything remotely interesting.

"Sorry, you just looked interesting, with the light and brick wall and everything," he said a bit sheepishly, but he didn't stop the camera. She had a wave of self-consciousness, and waited for it to pass. Truthfully, she wasn't much of an in-front-of-the-cameras person. "You're not going to smile?" he asked teasingly

She tried giving him a smile, but it probably came out half-hearted. "Enjoying the show?" Mark asked her, still on camera.

"It's, er, you know," she said, her powers of speech suddenly gone. "It's good," she concluded.

"Roger will be glad to hear it."

"I think he's getting plenty of that at the minute," she answered dryly.

"… Does that bother you?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"What, the attention?" she asked in return, mirroring the expression.

"Ah… no," she said, looking at her shoes. "I mean, the band deserves it, they put a lot of work into it."

"And the legions of screaming fangirls who want to toss their bras at Roger?"

Now she _did_ smile genuinely, if dryly at the camera. "They can toss as many articles of clothing at him as they'd like. I mean, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous – I guess that sounds a little silly, very high school," she blushed again.

Mark looked like he was going to answer, but they fell silent when Maureen, the object of Mark's very unrequited affection, passed by with a man neither of them knew on her arm without even looking their way. April saw a look on Mark's face, longing and just the smallest bit hurt, and then he quickly covered it up with indifference. "No, I think I know what you mean," he said after a second.

"You need a drink," she said, taking the filmmaker by the arm and dragging him back into the club.


End file.
